Silicon Collar

Automation has a habit of killing jobs and this has been true since the Industrial Revolution though it seems like we’re discovering this truth all over again. We easily forget when we only focus on the job creation aspects of automation and that usually gets us in trouble.

Since the IR there have been five distinct economic waves lasting between 50 and 60 years. These waves have been named after the late Russian economist Nicolai Kondratiev and are now referred to as K-waves or the Kondratiev Cycle. With an economic cycle this long very few people alive and working remember the last transition so of course it feels new.

The first Industrial Revolution revolved around water wheels and later steam power, iron, and textiles; it gave way to an age of steel and heavy engineering; then petroleum, electricity, cars, and mass production; today we live in an era of information and telecommunications. I estimate this era began around 1970 so it’s getting long in the tooth.

The first half of a wave is wonderful. A new technology takes hold and drives the economy, jobs are abundant even for the unskilled, inflation kicks up a notch or two and things seem pretty good. Inevitably though the second half kicks in and some of the earlier gains evaporate. The focus now is on gaining efficiencies from earlier innovations and product line extensions.

In the second half over-qualified people have a hard time finding a job, wages are flat, and capital reaps significant returns on investments made much earlier in the cycle. Sound familiar? But the good news is that if you know where and how to look you can see the next wave forming just as sure as a surfer can spot the next big one. That’s the nexus on my friend Vinnie Mirchandani’s new book, Silicon Collar—Dear reader please be aware that I am quoted extensively in the book but that I’d be writing this piece regardless.

In Silicon Collar, Mirchandani gives us a surfer’s-eye view of the next wave or at least the candidates for next wave. At this point there are many pretenders competing for the mantle and often the winner is hard to predict. Our current era, Information and Telecommunications has roots in the Space Program and the race to the moon. If you were alive then you would have bet anything that the next big K-wave would have had something to do with flying cars and many people predicted this but they were wrong.

IT and Telco were still embryonic in the 1960s and nothing like what they’ve become. Telco was a sleepy oligopoly, a regulated monopoly, printing money and delivering so-so service. Computers were things that required climate controlled rooms and lots of paper to perform really trivial tasks. Few people predicted that the miniaturization required to place a guidance computer on a space ship would have such far reaching effects, but it did.

That’s my look backward but Mirchandani tries to peer into the future. In this meticulously researched and reported book, he interviews leaders in about 50 new companies/industries and lets them tell their tales of the future. It’s an optimistic look at a future that far too many have glanced at with fear and suspicion rather than optimism and curiosity. You can’t blame them for their insecurities. We do live in interesting times. But our strength and the strength of Silicon Collar is its hopefulness and inquisitive nature. It’s worth reading even if you think you already know what the future will look like.

It might surprise you because you might find some backwater idea that only has a low power proof of concept that you think couldn’t possibly go anywhere.

Automation has a habit of killing jobs and this has been true since the Industrial Revolution though it seems like we’re discovering this truth all over again. We easily forget when we only focus on the job creation aspects of automation and that usually gets us in trouble.

Since the IR there have been five distinct economic waves lasting between 50 and 60 years. These waves have been named after the late Russian economist Nicolai Kondratiev and are now referred to as K-waves or the Kondratiev Cycle. With an economic cycle this long very few people alive and working remember the last transition so of course it feels new.

The first Industrial Revolution revolved around water wheels and later steam power, iron, and textiles; it gave way to an age of steel and heavy engineering; then petroleum, electricity, cars, and mass production; today we live in an era of information and telecommunications. I estimate this era began around 1970 so it’s getting long in the tooth.

The first half of a wave is wonderful. A new technology takes hold and drives the economy, jobs are abundant even for the unskilled, inflation kicks up a notch or two and things seem pretty good. Inevitably though the second half kicks in and some of the earlier gains evaporate. The focus now is on gaining efficiencies from earlier innovations and product line extensions.

In the second half over-qualified people have a hard time finding a job, wages are flat, and capital reaps significant returns on investments made much earlier in the cycle. Sound familiar? But the good news is that if you know where and how to look you can see the next wave forming just as sure as a surfer can spot the next big one. That’s the nexus on my friend Vinnie Mirchandani’s new book, Silicon Collar—Dear reader please be aware that I am quoted extensively in the book but that I’d be writing this piece regardless.

In Silicon Collar, Mirchandani gives us a surfer’s-eye view of the next wave or at least the candidates for next wave. At this point there are many pretenders competing for the mantle and often the winner is hard to predict. Our current era, Information and Telecommunications has roots in the Space Program and the race to the moon. If you were alive then you would have bet anything that the next big K-wave would have had something to do with flying cars and many people predicted this but they were wrong.

IT and Telco were still embryonic in the 1960s and nothing like what they’ve become. Telco was a sleepy oligopoly, a regulated monopoly, printing money and delivering so-so service. Computers were things that required climate controlled rooms and lots of paper to perform really trivial tasks. Few people predicted that the miniaturization required to place a guidance computer on a space ship would have such far reaching effects, but it did.

That’s my look backward but Mirchandani tries to peer into the future. In this meticulously researched and reported book, he interviews leaders in about 50 new companies/industries and lets them tell their tales of the future. It’s an optimistic look at a future that far too many have glanced at with fear and suspicion rather than optimism and curiosity. You can’t blame them for their insecurities. We do live in interesting times. But our strength and the strength of Silicon Collar is its hopefulness and inquisitive nature. It’s worth reading even if you think you already know what the future will look like.

It might surprise you because you might find some backwater idea that only has a low power proof of concept that you think couldn’t possibly go anywhere.

Blogroll

About Us

Beagle Research Group, LLC is a CRM analyst firm founded in 2004. We perform market research for vendors and advise end users in CRM selection, deployment and use. We also publish a steady stream of analysis on many of the industry’s most popular topics as well as emerging trends. For example, one of our core pursuits is researching emerging companies to understand current innovation trends. This research informs the advice we give our clients and readers.